DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader automates the definition of a DBIx::Class::Schema by scanning database table definitions and setting up the columns, primary keys, and relationships.

DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader currently supports only the DBI storage type. It has explicit support for DBD::Pg, DBD::mysql, DBD::DB2, DBD::SQLite, and DBD::Oracle. Other DBI drivers may function to a greater or lesser degree with this loader, depending on how much of the DBI spec they implement, and how standard their implementation is.

This module is designed more to get you up and running quickly against an existing database, or to be effective for simple situations, rather than to be what you use in the long term for a complex database/project.

That being said, transitioning your code from a Schema generated by this module to one that doesn't use this module should be straightforward and painless, so don't shy away from it just for fears of the transition down the road.

Example in Synopsis above demonstrates a few common arguments. For detailed information on all of the arguments, most of which are only useful in fairly complex scenarios, see the DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader::Base documentation.

If you intend to use loader_options, you must call loader_options before any connection is made, or embed the loader_options in the connection information itself as shown below. Setting loader_options after the connection has already been made is useless.

If the final argument is a hashref, and it contains a key loader_options, that key will be deleted, and its value will be used for the loader options, just as if set via the "loader_options" method above.

The actual auto-loading operation (the heart of this module) will be invoked as soon as the connection information is defined.

Calling this as a class method on either DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader or any derived schema class will cause all affected schemas to dump manual versions of themselves to the named directory when they are loaded. In order to be effective, this must be set before defining a connection on this schema class or any derived object (as the loading happens as soon as both a connection and loader_options are set, and only once per class).

This can also be set at module import time via the import option dump_to_dir:/foo/bar to DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader, where /foo/bar is the target directory.

Examples:

# My::Schema isa DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader, and has connection info
# hardcoded in the class itself:
perl -MDBIx::Class::Schema::Loader=dump_to_dir:/foo/bar -MMy::Schema -e1
# Same, but no hard-coded connection, so we must provide one:
perl -MDBIx::Class::Schema::Loader=dump_to_dir:/foo/bar -MMy::Schema -e 'My::Schema->connection("dbi:Pg:dbname=foo", ...)'
# Or as a class method, as long as you get it done *before* defining a
# connection on this schema class or any derived object:
use My::Schema;
My::Schema->dump_to_dir('/foo/bar');
My::Schema->connection(........);
# Or as a class method on the DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader itself, which affects all
# derived schemas
use My::Schema;
use My::OtherSchema;
DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader->dump_to_dir('/foo/bar');
My::Schema->connection(.......);
My::OtherSchema->connection(.......);
# Another alternative to the above:
use DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader qw| dump_to_dir:/foo/bar |;
use My::Schema;
use My::OtherSchema;
My::Schema->connection(.......);
My::OtherSchema->connection(.......);

This simple function allows one to create a Loader-based schema in-memory on the fly without any on-disk class files of any kind. When used with the dump_directory option, you can use this to generate a rough draft manual schema from a dsn without the intermediate step of creating a physical Loader-based schema class.

The return value is the input class name.

This function can be exported/imported by the normal means, as illustrated in these Examples:

Currently the loader is limited to working within a single schema (using the database vendors' definition of "schema"). If you have a multi-schema database with inter-schema relationships (which is easy to do in PostgreSQL or DB2 for instance), you only get to automatically load the tables of one schema, and any relationships to tables in other schemas will be silently ignored.

At some point in the future, an intelligent way around this might be devised, probably by allowing the db_schema option to be an arrayref of schemas to load.